“Why, yes,” she replied “You see I’ve been hunting so hard for you, Joe, among those friends you used to have.  And I did it without ever letting you know.  Dwight, too—­he was only one of them.”  She frowned, and added briskly, “Just incidental, so to speak.  But I don’t care to talk of him now—­I’m speaking only of Amy.  And from what Sally Crothers has told me, poor Amy must have had some hard times.  They weren’t fair to her.  If they’d given her time and a real chance, everything might have been different.  But they didn’t, they turned her down.  And feeling hurt and angry—­and feeling besides how she’d have to grow—­in her mind, I mean, and her interests, to take any place among people like that—­I think she hesitated.  You might have helped her then, perhaps—­but you didn’t—­and Amy was lazy, Joe—­that had always been a part of her.  So she wouldn’t make the effort.  Instead of coming up to you, she made up her mind to pull you down!”

“That isn’t true!” he said harshly.  “And if you’ve been taking for God’s own truth what Sally Crothers told you—­”

“Stop!  Please!” cried Ethel eagerly.  “I didn’t mean what I said just then—­I put it badly—­oh, so wrong!  She didn’t say, ’I’ll pull him down.’  She told herself your friends were snobs!  And she said, ’I have friends who are human, and they’re quite good enough for me!’ So she went on with Fanny Carr.  And others came, the circle grew.  And it was all done day by day, and week by week.  It happened—­and you never knew.  Nor did she.  It was all so natural.  But within a year she was going with people, and so were you, who cared for nothing you had wanted—­women with no growth at all.  They were all—­oh, so common, Joe!”

“That’s a bit snobbish, isn’t it?”

“You can call it what you like!  But I say you can find them all over town—­richer and poorer, better and worse—­women who want only common things—­just clothes and food and what they call love—­with not a wish that I can see except for money to live like that!  I’m no prig, Joe!  I want pretty clothes, and I want to be gay and have nice things.  But you can get all I want of that and still get what is so much more!” Her voice dropped; she hurried eagerly on:  “Real work you love and which makes you grow, and friends that keep you growing!  Ideas and things to know about—­and beauty, music, pictures—­the opera—­books and people, plays—­and buildings!  The new library—­the station—­the—­the tower down on Madison Square!  Your work, Joe!  And your old friends!  Men and women who really think and feel—­not just alive in their bodies!  I don’t know much about all that.  Do you, these days!  Mighty little!  Because she kept you away from it!”

“No!” But she caught the uncertain look in his eyes.

“Are you so sure?  Why didn’t she ever go to Paris?  She must have been dying to go there and shop, but she never let you take her there.  She was afraid to let you go near it again—­the Beaux Arts work, the student life—­afraid that you’d get thinking!  So she kept you here and away from your friends.  She even kept Crothers out of your firm.  You partner fought her hard on that—­and you held out—­until one day Crothers came to your office and told you he had changed his mind.  You remember?”